This invention relates generally to handling and transporting plastic articles, such as blowable plastic parisons, from a remote bulk storage location to the load stations of one or more blow-molding machines.
The art forming bottles and containers by blow-molding has advanced to the stage where several thousands of such articles can be blown each hour. Methods and apparatus have developed to form blowable parisons at one location which are later transported to blow-molding machines. The freshly formed parisons are initially stored randomly in a bulk container. This necessarily requires that the blowable parisons, from which the articles are blown, be transported rapidly and inexpensively to the load stations of the blow-molding machines on demand.
A problem has existed with the previous methods and apparatus for parison handling in that much of the handling was done manually and with apparatus which handled the parisons roughly. Thus the previous apparatus for handling parisons tended to cause more than an acceptable amount of marking on the parison bodies, which markings show as a defect in the finally blown bottle. There was a need for reliable apparatus that would quickly transport the parisons from the bulk storage to the blow molding machine on demand and without marking the bodies of the parisons.